Escape
by RowenPaperwhite
Summary: An occasionally updated, vaguely linear, compilation of drabbles, mostly about Neria Surana. If you don't like angst of dubious quality this is not the story for you.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Neria is 14 and Solona is 15 in this. In case you were wondering. You probably weren't.**

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Solona winced as Neria applied the poultice she had made earlier that day onto the welts covering Solona's back.

"Solona, why do you insist on misbehaving so much? I worry about you..." Neria's voice was filled with concern for her friend. She hated it when Solona would get into trouble just for trouble's sake.  
When Solona was younger she would simply get a scolding, but when she got older the punishments got worse and Neria didn't like patching her up now that she started refusing to go to the infirmary for reasons Neria scarcely understood.

"What if they make you tranquil?"  
Solona scoffed at Neria's question in the arrogant way she scoffed at most things regarding the circle.

"Ha! I'd leap out the highest window in this tower before I'd let them make me tranquil! Besides..."  
Solona lowered her voice down closer to a whisper, giving the nearest templar a dirty look.

"One day I'm getting us out of here. You and me Neria. They'll never catch us."

Neria simply shook her head. She had little hope that that would ever work out. Unlike Solona, Neria had pretty much accepted her fate as soon as she arrived at the tower. She didn't like it, but so long as she says her prayers and minds the templars like a good little mageling her life could be much worse.

Solona on the other hand had refused any thoughts of the sort. In the eight years she'd been at the tower her spirit was never broken. It wavered at times sure, but her conviction always seemed to come out stronger in the end. She took whatever they threw at her and spit it right back at them.

Neria admired this about her a lot even if it did trouble her.

"I'd just slow you down, Solona. Even if you did somehow found a way out I'd end up getting you caught. You'd be better to go without me. I'm fine here. It's not so bad."

If Neria weren't still dressing her wounds Solona would have whipped around to face her in shock.

"Neria! Perish at the thought! I'm going to need you with me! You know I'm no good at healing and the stoic, solitary hero look doesn't suit me. I need a right hand!"

Neria laughed in a small almost empty sort of way. Solona read too many novels and not enough academic texts in Neria's opinion, but she found it charming at times when Solona would talk this way. As if one day they both could just run away and become dashing heroes or roguish pirates.  
_'  
If anyone can do it it's Solona.' _Neria would think to herself.

"Me? Your right hand? I don't think I would make a very good right hand, Solona. I'm sure you could find someone better."

"Your my best friend, Neria. Who could be better than you?"

"What about Jowan?"

They _**both **_laughed at that.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This one is written from Neria's point of view. Neria is 16 and Solona is 17. This one was supposed to be fluffy. I don't really know what happened.**

**So uh... enjoy some poorly written angst?**

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Solona glares at the templars. I am used to this. Solona always glares at the templars. But Solona usually glares at all the templars equally. In the past month though, I have noticed Solona glaring near exclusively at one templar in particular. And it's not as if he is particularly cruel to her or the other apprentices. In fact we've spoken once or twice and he's been nicer to me than any other templar ever has.

He even smiles at me. And I mean actually smiles, rather than leer or smirk like some of the templars do. Those are the templars Solona usually glares at most when she does choose favorites. So why is she glaring at one of the few nice ones now?

"Solona. Why are you glaring at him? He hasn't done anything wrong." I ask her this one day in the library. The look she gives me is indecipherable and unpleasant.

"He's a templar. Why wouldn't I?" She says this and it feels incomplete. There's like there is something else under it, something she thinks should be heard while remaining unspoken, but I can't quite grasp.

"I've talked to him, you know. He's nice. I think I might even like him a little bit." The admission made something in my stomach flutter. Solona on the other hand looked as if I had just told her I was in love with Knight-Commander Greagoir or something equally outlandish and horrifying. The astonished expression on her hardened into a scolding one.

"So he's smiled at you a few times? Big deal. That doesn't mean he's any different from the rest of them. He just wants to make you to let your guard down, to make you vulnerable." The statement was said as a venomous hiss. I have seen Solona angry many times. But it was a loud passionate anger, not the seething fury she expressed now. It frightens me a little bit.

"Templars dedicate their lives to learning every way to force us into weakness, to hunt us like animals, to kill us! And he's not going to hesitate to do it if he thinks he should. No amount of _smiles_ will change that, Neria. He is just like the rest of them."

The amount of hate in what she said shakes me to my core. She'd never spoken like that to me before and I think she starts to regret it when she sees the tears prickling in my eyes.

"Neria, I..." She reaches out a hand to comfort me, but it's too late and I've run out of the room before she can say anything more.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: ****Ahh young love. How it disgusts me.**

**So now _here_ is the fluffy sort of thing I was trying to write in that last chapter. Reads with the last chapter. So it's still in Neria's POV and she is still 16.**

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Despite the frightening words Solona said to me those few months back, my like of the templar has not dissipated. If anything it's gotten stronger. I feel my stomach jump into my chest when he wishes me a good morning or afternoon in that shy way he does, or when he picks something up that I've dropped, or when he smiles at me like no one else ever has.

'Cullen' I found out his name was. I think Solona is wrong. I don't think he would ever hurt me. I think he might even like me too. This is why I was up all last night. I'd never written a love letter before and I wanted it to be perfect. Because I don't want to come on too strong, but I still want him to know how I feel.

I'm shifting from foot to foot while I wait in the deserted hall for Cullen to go to his morning post. My heart nearly bursts from my ribcage when I see him walking down the hall. Now is my chance. I leap out and shove the letter into his hands without a word, then take off as fast as I can back to the apprentice quarters. I don't want to see the look on his face if my feelings are unwanted.

I start to giggle and I spend the rest of the morning imagining all sorts of impossible scenarios of running away with him and getting married. It's the first time I've ever really dreamed about a life outside the circle.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Betrayal, Bereavement, and Blood Mages, oh my!  
Anyways. This takes place after Neria's Harrowing. Solona has not gone through hers.  
Neria is 18, Solona 19. I just feel obligated to tell you their ages every chapter at this point.**

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Neria screams when Jowan stabs himself with the knife. He was a blood mage and he lied to her. Neria looks over to Solona who does not look shocked at all by the turn of events. This makes Neria want to puke.

Solona knew. Solona knew and she lied to her too.

Neria nearly does puke when the thought flickers into her head _'Is Solona a blood mage too?'_.

Solona whispers in her ear.  
"I'll come back for you." And like that Solona and Jowan are out the door and gone. Neria knows Solona isn't coming back. It was just an empty attempt at comforting her. They both know Neria isn't going to get out of this with just a slap on the wrist.

They're going to make her tranquil and all she can do is drop to her knees and weep on the bloody floor.

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When they find Jowan in the dungeon in Redcliff, Aedan and Alistair have to hold Neria back from trying to maim him through the bars of his cell with her bare hands. 


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This takes place like RIGHT after that last chapter. So uh yeah.  
**

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When Neria first steps out of the tower she immediately mourns the loss of the warm, confining walls that protected her from the harsh elements of Ferelden. She supposes this is better than being made tranquil, but having to leave without the time to even change her robe, the world is not making an ideal first impression. And as someone who never wanted to leave the tower in the first place the impression is laced with an extra layer of bitterness.

Not that she didn't appreciate the pity she assumed the Gray Warden conscripted her out of. After all who looks at an elf weeping on the floor and thinks to themself "Ah yes, the crying elf will make a _perfect_ addition to my prestigious order of warriors!" Neria would wager that it is not a very high number.

He had saved her nonetheless and she silently vows to try her very hardest not to die right away.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I could not for the life of me make the words work the way I wanted them to.  
**

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Neria was silent for most of the trip spare the small prattle that becomes inevitable when traveling with someone unfamiliar to you.

"Where are we going?"

"How long until we get there?"

"Are we stopping for the night?"

"Should I get more fire wood?"

So on and so forth.

Otherwise she filled the long silences with thoughts of many things such as, her past at the tower, her future with the Grey Wardens, she even thought of Cullen a fair bit, but most of all she thought of Solona. Her feelings of shock and anger had slowly simmered down into sadness and resignation. Just because Jowan resorted to blood magic didn't mean that Solona would do such a thing and if Solona _was_ a blood mage then Neria would just have to cross that bridge when she came to it.

_If_ she came to it.

When they finally arrived at Ostagar Neria couldn't help the small twinge of disappointment that sprung from the small corner in the back of her mind that had hoped she would see Solona on the road and they would be together again and that that would somehow make everything right. But no, instead she was in a camp full of more people she could ever remember seeing at any one time and feeling more alone than she had ever been in her life.


	7. Chapter 7

Elissa glares down coolly at Alistair with a practiced scorn that only a noble could achieve.

"He's a purebred mabari war hound. Of course he's going to growl at you if you call him 'puppy'."

"Well, what's his name then?"

"Barks McScruffles."

"...Barks_...McScruffles?_"

"Barks McScruffles."

Alistair really isn't sure how he feels about the newest group of Gray Warden recruits.

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**A/N: AND SO BEGINS THE ROMANCE THAT SHAPES A NATION. BARDS WILL SING OF THIS DAY FOR AGES TO COME. Anyways. I know, I know. This is my shortest chapter yet (and also Neria isn't in it), But I'm sure you're all used to short chapters by now. Like... all zero of you.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Look I only have a very foggy idea of where I'm taking this, if anywhere. So, you know... be prepared for disappointment. If you aren't already, I mean.**

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"_Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that can not be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.__"_

The cracking thud of Neria hitting the stone ground rippled through her head as her mind drifted out of consciousness.

In her dream she is held fast by a paralyzing darkness that seems to pull the very air from her lungs. Slowly in her vision shapes start to form from blurs, darkspawn, in the center of them all, a massive dragon. It looks her in the eye for a silent moment before it calls a thunderous roar that incites a terror that is unmatched by any other Neria has felt before in her life.

When she wakes every last one of her instincts tell her to scream, but her body refuses to do anything other than draw in shallow breaths. The feeling of calloused fingers pressing into her neck is what finally made her eyes snap open. Neria thinks to herself that she must have looked frightening as the person who had been touching her shot back and raised his hands in a defensive stance.

"Don't look at me like that. I was just checking! You're the last one to wake up and I just wanted to make sure that you were, you know...actually alive."

Neria looked him over. She recognized him right away as being one of the recruits she took her joining with. 'Aedan' she thinks. His sister was Elissa, the tall intimidating one. He looked rather plain in comparison to her, but his soft features and warm eyes were by no means unattractive. So Neria nodded and tried to smile slightly to show that no harm was done.

"So where are the others?" She asked looking around, noticing that they were in fact the only people left in the small area where the joining had taken place. The bodies of Daveth and Ser Jory had thankfully been removed.

"My sister went with Duncan and the other Grey Warden to discuss strategy with the king, and the other recruits went off to prepare for the battle. I offered to stay here and wait for you to wake up."

Neria's smile briefly turned to something more genuine while she thanked him for staying with, but she dropped it from her face as soon as she rose to her feet. It was a dizzy rise, but she found her balence quickly and strode towards the camp while Aedan weighed the pros and cons of trotting after her.


End file.
